LENT 3B
Exodus 20.1-17
March 15, 2009
Clean your plate. Brush your teeth. Make your bed. Don’t say shut up. Feed the animals. Do the dishes. Go to your room and don’t come out until it’s clean. Do your homework. Practice the piano. Dusting gets done first thing Saturday morning. Don’t fight with your brother. Be nice to your sister. Don’t talk back to me like that. Have respect. Write your thank you notes.
Sound familiar? These were some of the ‘commandments’ that existed in our home during my childhood. They were rules that were understood by all and executed by some much of the time. Now and again one of the three of us, as children, failed to keep up to speed on them or were sidetracked for some reason. A sister got on my nerves, a brother said something mean, someone forgot it was their turn to complete a chore, anger created an environment that caused language that was inappropriate to be heard. I’m sure it was not much different in your world as a child or in your house now as a parent with a young child or children.
Rules are set to be followed, not necessarily broken, although sometimes that is the challenge, isn’t it? To ask the what if or what will questions. What if I don’t make my bed, what’s the worst that could happen? What will the punishment be if I choose to ignore my mother’s pleas to clean my room? What if I just don’t feel like it? I played out those scenarios and more often than not, paid the price. I was sent to my room or a chore was added or a privilege taken away. There were consequences.
Those rules or commandments of family life existed to help keep order and prevent chaos and they worked most days. To be sure there was a learning curve involved but one got the hang of it and, after a while and some level of maturity I stopped asking the why questions and gave in to the understanding that this was how we formed a family community and lived together in some sense of unity most of the time although there were moments. Moments of rebellion, moments of questioning, moments of pushing the limits. You’ve been there before, haven’t you?
That reality is not much different from what we encounter in today’s first reading from Exodus as the commandments are given from on high to Moses who will pass them on to a nation in transition. They are not meant so much as ‘shall nots’ as they are meant to show how a community can live together with broad understanding as to what helps that community grow and prosper. It makes sense not to kill others or steal or covet, doesn’t it? And recognizing who is really in charge, namely God, acts as the starting point.
But before we leave the shall nots, let’s pause for a moment and hear again the opening words of the lesson. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” These are important words to contextualize as we encounter the commandments, the sign of the new covenant God is making with his people.
Thomas Long, homiletics professor, suggests that for many for too long the Ten Commandments appear as weight and baggage that is to be carried and weigh us down. He suggests a different view be taken.
“Understanding the Decalogue as a set of burdens overlooks something essential, namely that they are prefaced not by an order—"Here are ten rules. Obey them!"—but instead by a breathtaking announcement of freedom: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" (Ex. 20:2). We will probably always refer to the declarations that follow as the "Ten Commandments," but we can also think of them as descriptions of the life that prevails in the zone of God's liberation. "Because the Lord is your God," the Decalogue affirms, "you are free not to need any other gods. You are free to rest on the seventh day; free from the tyranny of lifeless idols; free from murder, stealing and covetousness as ways to establish yourself in the land."
The Decalogue begins with the good news of what the liberating God has done and then describes the shape of the freedom that results. If we want to symbolize the presence of the Ten Commandments among us, we would do well to hold a dance. The good news of the God who set people free is the music; the commandments are the dance steps of those who hear it playing. The commandments are not weights, but wings that enable our hearts to catch the wind of God's Spirit and to soar. As Luther wisely advised, "With practice one can take the Ten Commandments on one day, a psalm or chapter of Holy Scripture the next day, and use them as flint and steel to kindle a flame in the heart."
Robert Wuthnow talks about how we transmit our ethical ideals to future generations by telling stories. "Stories do more than keep memories alive," says Wuthnow. "Sometimes these stories become so implanted in our minds that they act back upon us, directly and powerfully."
Wuthnow tells the story of Jack Casey, a volunteer fireman and ambulance attendant who, as a child, had to have some of his teeth extracted under general anesthesia. Jack was terrified, but a nurse standing nearby said to him, "Don't worry, I'll be here right beside you no matter what happens." When he woke up from the surgery, she had kept her word and was still standing beside him.
This experience of being cared for by the nurse stayed with him, and nearly 20 years later his ambulance crew was called to the scene of an accident. The driver was pinned upside down in his pickup truck, and Jack crawled inside to try to get him out of the wreckage. Gasoline was dripping onto both Jack and the driver, and there was a serious danger of fire because power tools were being used to free the driver. The whole time, the driver was crying out about how scared of dying he was, and Jack kept saying to him, recalling what the nurse had said so many years before, "Look, don't worry, I'm right here with you, I'm not going anywhere." Later, after the truck driver had been safely rescued, he was incredulous. "You were an idiot," he said to Jack. "You know that the thing could have exploded and we'd have both been burned up!" In reply, Jack simply said he felt he just couldn't leave him.
That's the way the commandments work. First comes the experience of being cared for, the experience of being set free, preserved in the form of a narrative. Then there follows the life shaped ethically around that profound story. A nurse saying "I'll be right here beside you" becomes the action of a man risking his life for a stranger because he knows in his bones that he just can't leave him. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you . . . out of the house of slavery" prompts us to live lives shaped by the freedom created by that God.
A new way to look at the Ten Commandments? Perhaps. But even more importantly, the point is this. Our God is a God who claims us and sets us free to be his people in this world. And when we break one or all of the commandments, his promise is forgiveness and freedom in grace.
Jesus’ cleansing of the temple is simply extension and proof of that. We cannot buy our way into God’s heart or life or life, no matter the size or cost of our sacrifice. Christ’s sacrifice was all that was necessary, for God, it is enough! Amen.
Copyright © The Rev. Aileen Robbins. All rights reserved; use requires permission
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